Walden Essay Research Paper Henry David Thoreau — страница 4

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Emerson’s second wife, were all welcomed boarders at the Thoreau household. Henry spent most of his life in the Concord Village and town, which at this time was a scarcely populated town of just about two thousand people. He had, “… a boyhood like many boyhoods…” (Derleth, 3); he drove cows to the pasture, fished, ran barefoot, built bonfires at Walden pond during evening fishing episodes, and even hunted a little, though he gave it up pretty quickly. Whereas he may have been known for having a good sense of humor and easy geniality within his family, he was a grave boy. It was this fact that earned him the nick-name “Judge.” He became very interested in books and learning, a trait that would stay with him throughout life. Some of his early writings such as his

journal and his first essay, The Seasons, displayed his love for nature and his writing ability, but left no clue to his later mentality. His journal quotes him saying, “My life was ecstasy.” Yet, if looking closer at his ascent into adulthood, it is possible to find more than what his simple quote describes. Thoreau’s nonconformist and rebellious traits, especially his inability to have close friends, go all the way back to his earliest years. It is important to remember “Most behavior grows out of experiences with the environment” (Candland & Campbell, 57). This behavior is known as learned behavior, which classifies almost all behavior besides born natural instincts and physical conditions. Thoreau is no exception to this rule. When he was in his youngest

developmental stages his family was very poor, and always on the move, which left him without a stable environment. Lack of a stable environment at early ages puts a child under much stress, and makes it hard for him to distinguish between the traits he should be learning. A child needs a consistent exposure to his surroundings and a stable relationship with people around him in order to learn without confusion. All the different faces Thoreau became acquainted with when he was youngest left him in a state of undeveloped sociability outside his close family, and the differences in his surroundings left him finding it hard to relate to the outside world as a normal child. Thoreau’s now crippled sociability increased the difficulty for him to make friends, and he may have even

been teased or taunted by his peers. Now without boyhood companionship in the school or town, he would have to look for it within the family. Yet he was only to find an older brother whom, as older brothers often do, precluded his smaller, slower little brother, and Thoreau did not find it fit to have a his little sister for his closest friend. His father was more of a disciplinary figure than a companion, as most fathers of the time period were, and the womanly friendship he had with his mother still left him without real camaraderie. Henry turned to the woods and nature, and here he found beauty and solitude. He found a warmth that somehow eased his need for companionship, and an indiscriminant charm that inticed him. It was a place that he felt a part of, even more so than the

town, the school, and his family. He would spend much of his childhood here, as described before, fishing, hunting, camping, building fires. The important part is that he was doing this alone, and nature became his one true companion. Thus, creating his fascination and love for it’s splendor. His views of nature would be of the deepest perception and knowing, as he would spend much of his life there. These views not in anyway disturbed or marking him to be a disturbed man as one may comprise from his beginnings, but not being the views a normal man would derive from his naturalistic walks. He soon found that society itself was inferior when compared to nature, and began to view its laws and customs with a rebellious eye. “I went to the woods because I wished to live

deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived…still we live meanly like ants though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout…” (Thoreau, 66). Henry went off to Harvard and made his way along college nosing through books, and stayed much like a hermit. Though the experience was good for him, it gave him the chance to become acquainted with Harvard’s vast library, and introduced him to a few people he considered friends. There is even evidence of friendship in letters he wrote during college break, yet even they were considered distant friends. He wrote to